Sunbeam Quarterback Review

Introduction:

What do you think of when you hear the word "Quarterback?" Probably football, right? Well, the job of a Quarterback on the football team is to lead the way to victory and keep everyone working well together, which is what Sunbeam wants from its case, the Sunbeam Quarterback. Sunbeam wants the Quarterback to grab the attention of the consumer with not only its name, but also by its bold looking face, which somewhat looks like the guards on a football helmet. Sunbeam has put its patented Core-Fan technology into the Quarterback to give it a boost against the competition when it comes to performance. Let's see if it will be able to make the catch and beat out the competition.

Closer Look:

The packaging for the Sunbeam Quarterback is very simple and plain. The package is printed in all black and white with a very simple picture of the case's front bezel on both the front and back sides of the case. The only words that are on these sides of the package are Quarterback and the Core-Fan installation availability. When you look at the two sides, this is where Sunbeam decided to place all of the specifications of the case. Both sides are exactly the same, except that the specifications are written in four different languages, English and Dutch on one side, French and Spanish on the other.

When you pull the case out of the box, you can see that Sunbeam has packaged the Quarterback very carefully by adding a plastic protective cover over the case and then fitting molded Styrofoam to both the top and bottom of the case to help prevent any damage that may occur during the shipping process.

Now that we know how the Sunbeam Quarterback has been packaged, it's time to get an initial look over and see what is inside of the case and what makes it different from the others out in the market.

Closer Look:

When you take the protective plastic off of the Sunbeam Quarterback, you can see that the case is constructed to be very simple by not having too many things going on and just colored using two very simple colors, black and silver, which go very well together. When taking a look at the rear of the Quarterback, you are able to see that it has been constructed like many other cases out on the market. There are the expansion slots at the bottom, while at the top there is the designated place for the power supply and right under this by the rear IO panel is the 120mm fan blowing warm air out of the case. On the main side of the case there is a clear window, which has a single 120mm fan on it, that allows you to see the innards of the system you build in the Quarterback. The fourth side of the case is very simple and plain, which is very common between all cases.

The first part of the case that I am going to take a look at is the front/side IO panel installed on the Quarterback. The IO panel has just the bare minimum of ports that are used by consumers nowadays; there are two USB 2.0 ports, a headphone port, as well as a port that you are able to plug your microphone into. There is a spot for a 1394 (Firewire) port, however this option was not installed on this particular case. These ports can come in handy, and the placement of them on this case is very helpful by not taking away any of the cosmetic look by being on the "hidden" side of the case. On the front of the Quarterback there is a silver "door" that you are able to open up to expose all of the drive bays and have access to them for the installation of any drives you may have.

Now that we know how the case is built and set up, we should take a look at what makes this thing tick. I am very interested to take a look at the Core-Fan technology that Sunbeam has incorporated into the Quarterback case.

Closer Look:

When you remove the front black bezel, you are able to see a few things about this case. The first thing that you are able to notice is that there is a spot for a 120mm fan at the bottom of the front of the case, however this spot is empty and the case does not come with a spare fan. The second thing that you may notice is how the IO panel is wired, as well as where the power and restart buttons on the front of the case are.

When you take a look at the left side of the case, you are able to see what is inside of the case through the side panel acrylic window that has a 120mm fan installed to bring fresh air in from outside of the case and blow over some of the important components that are below. Not only are you able to see the pre-installed 120mm fan, you are also able to see the patented idea that Sunbeam has come up with for installing two fans that are suspended in the middle of your case to keep the air flowing, which we will take a look at later.

Before we actually open up the case to see what is on the inside, I would like to take a closer look at what is going on at the back of the case. When you take a look, like most all other cases, there is a rear fan that is installed in a way to blow out the warm air to make more room for cooler, fresh air. The Quarterback has a 120mm fan that is installed in this spot. Right below the fan is where all of the expansion slots are - there is a total of seven slots that all have tool-less features to install the cards. Above the slots, there are holes drilled into the case to allow for freely flowing air to escape from inside of the case or for fresh air to be sucked in by a video card's heatsink/fan setup.

Now that we have taken a look at everything on the outside of the case, let's open her up and see what she has hiding on the inside. When you first take off the front cover, you are able to see that there are five exposed 5.25" drive bays on the right, with two exposed 3.5" drive bays directly underneath them that all have tool-less installation features. Under the 3.5" drive bays there are three more 3.5" drive bays. This is not all that is hidden inside of the case, there is also the patented Core-Fan technology that Sunbeam has come up with. This is the bar that is dividing the case into two sections with two 120mm fans attached. This keeps the air flowing in the intended direction once it has gotten into the case. There is a brown box that is inside the case with installation instructions, as well as a bag of screws and the necessary pieces to allow the tool-free installation of the drives.

The expansion slots on the inside of the case look very similar to those of any other case, however they take advantage of using a tool-free technology, very similar to the rest of the features on the Quarterback.

The fans that are inside the case are all 120mm. The two that are installed in the center are able to be removed by unscrewing three screws, which then will allow you to install the motherboard. The fans can be left on the bar or removed if you wish. All of the fans inside are the same type and made by the same manufacturer - Sunbeam - and are all rated at 1000RPM.

Specifications:

Model

Quarterback

Case Type

Mid Tower

Dimensions

451mm x 300mm x 430mm (L x W x H)

Cooling System

Side: 1x 120mm Fan

Rear: 1x 120mm Fan

Inner: 2x 120mm Fans

Drive Bays

5 External 5.25"
2 External 3.5"

3 Internal 3.5"

Material

Steel

Expansion Slots

7 Slots

Power Supply

Not Included

I/O Panel

USB 2.0 x 2, Audio x 1, Microphone x 1

Motherboard Support

ATX, Flex ATX, Mini ATX, Micro ATX

Features:

Four Included 120mm Fans (1000RPM)

Steel Chassis

Front I/O Panel

Front Door

Tool-less Features

Core-Fan Technology

Testing:

To properly test the Sunbeam Quarterback, I will be testing for both idle temperatures as well as full load temperatures. To test the idle temperatures, I will be letting the computer sit for 30 minutes at idle. To test load, I will run a one hour OCCT stress test with a blend of both CPU and RAM, set at normal priority. I will be using SpeedFan version 4.32 to gather my system chipset, CPU core, and hard drive temperature readings. For the video card temperatures, I will be using ATI Tool version 0.27's built-in temperature monitor. To gather the full load temperatures of the GPU, I will be running 3DMark06 two times, back-to-back, then quickly looking at the temperature reading. All of the temperatures will be read in degrees Celsius.

The Sunbeam Quarterback computer case was very comparable to all of the other cases that it was put up against. The temperatures were very similar to most of the other ones, I was surprised that the Core-Fan did not do as good of a job as I would have thought it would.

Conclusion:

The Sunbeam Quarterback kept its "cool" and kept up with most of the other cases that it was put up against. The temperatures that I got were very close to what I was getting with other full tower cases, which is very surprising since the Quarterback is a mid tower. I also liked the colors that Sunbeam decided to use for this case, the black and silver colors flow very well together and make the case look very sleek. However, the front bezel and front door were made of a plastic, which does not feel very sturdy or durable, something I was not very impressed about. I think that the addition of a 120mm fan at the front of the case would be a good idea to add more airflow and keeping the temperatures lower by introducing more fresh air to the system. The Core-Fan technology did keep the chipset temperatures lower than they were in some other cases, which is a good thing for this little case. The fans that came with the case were very quiet for running at 1000RPM, the dBA rating was not printed anywhere in the documentation that came with the case nor on the box or fans. Overall, I was very impressed by how well the Core-Fan worked and kept this little thing flying.